Maddening brilliance: Ars reviews Demon’s Souls

Demon's Souls is one of the most challenging and frustrating games you're ever …

It's been a long time since I played something like Demon's Souls. I couldn't pause. I died a lot. It took me roughly six hours to beat the first real level of the game. I died some more. The game's mood constantly made me feel uneasy and jumpy. I kept on dying. And yet, I continued to play it with relish because I knew from the moment I started the adventure that this action-RPG was something special.

The game, created by From Software, is a pain to learn, terrifyingly difficult, and downright eerie a lot of the time. It's an unforgiving adventure that will probably turn off many gamers, primarily those who are used to easier titles; if you like games that coddle their players, this isn't for you. But, if you are willing to put up with the insane difficulty and like to actually work at playing a game, you'll discover that Demon's Souls is an incredibly rare gem.

The game's intro paints a pretty bleak picture: in the kingdom of Boletaria, a king obsessed with power figured out a way to channel souls. For a while, this knowledge paid off and brought a brief age of prosperity to the land. After a while, though, a strange fog settled around the country and cut it off from the rest of the world.

Eventually, someone broke through the barrier and informed the country's neighbors that it had been invaded by the forces of the Old One, a powerful demon that was less-than-thrilled at the idea of someone horning in on its spiritual turf. Naturally, countless adventurers ventured into the fog, hoping to save the kingdom, but were never heard from again. The player-character is like the rest of the ill-fated heroes, but with one ace up their sleeve: they've been granted aid by the mysterious Maiden in Black, who rescues them from the jaws of death.

The premise of Demon’s Souls sounds like it’s straight out of a tired fantasy novel, but it soon becomes apparent that this game is anything but ordinary. From the moment you begin your one-person war against the forces of darkness occupying Boletaria, you’ll quickly realize that the country is completely overrun by demons, dragons, soulless soldiers, skeletons, and zombies (of course). There are no NPCs to help you, no friendly characters to offer you aid or succor; everything out in the world is howling for your blood. In other words, it’s just you against the monsters.

But overwhelming odds are just the start of the ass-whooping that Demon’s Souls will hand to you many, many times. It’s not uncommon to die as you progress through a level. A lot. This is especially true when you first try to pause the game and then realize that it won't actually pause. Instead, a menu will appear over the screen, but the action continues in the background at full-speed.

It requires a lot of strategy to conquer a section of each province, and the only way to figure out which strategies work is to try something, (usually) fail miserably, and then try something else until you stumble across a winning approach that will let you inch a little further along before you have to repeat the process.

New armor, items, and weapons can be purchased at the Nexus, a sort of safe-haven for tortured souls. Nexus is the one place where nothing will try to kill you, and you'll have to backtrack here constantly if you want to store your items or pick up new ones. Purchases are made with the souls of fallen enemies that you collect. As a result, you'll often find yourself backtracking through a level to get to a warp point and return to Nexus in order to make a purchase before you are temporarily removed from the gene pool.

The backtracking is necessary because, when you die, you're taken back to the beginning of the section you were in. You also are left in your "phantom form," which sports a reduced amount of health than your character's physical body would. Finally, you'll also lose all the souls you've managed to accumulate up to that point. If you can fight your way back to the spot that you died and touch the bloodstain you left behind, you can regain some of the souls you lost. If you die three times before you get to it, though, the souls are lost for good. The only way to regain your physical form is by winning a boss battle, which is never an easy task.

In most cases, this would be maddening. But there is never a dull moment during this constant trial-and-error gameplay. Enemies are quite varied throughout levels: even though they look the same, they'll use different tactics and weapons, which means that you have to adjust your play style accordingly. While the bastard sword might be useful for crowd control on an open field, reduced numbers in tighter spaces might require something smaller and faster like an assassin's dagger.

Characters will eventually learn how to use magic and gain new skills, which deepens the gameplay experience significantly. Up to that point, though, players have to be extremely cautious while they creep through ruins and try not to become dinner for the next thing that goes bump in the night. It's often a nerve-wracking experience, checking every shadow and rounding corners as carefully as possible, hoping against hope that you won't be caught off-guard while you continue to inch through the world.

Part of Demon's Souls eeriness is also due to some great production decisions. Visually, the unease stems from each level's epic scale and the dreary coloring, but it's the audio that really manages to pull this off. There's practically no music to be heard as you go through a level, which makes every piece of background noise all the more noticeable. Like Hitchcock believed: things become rather intimidating when music isn't popping in to regularly remind the audience that what they're watching isn't real.

Finally, the title's online mechanic is unlike anything you are likely to experience in another game. The game will automatically connect to the PSN when you start it up, and players can indirectly contact each other by leaving messages throughout the world offering tips, hints, or warnings about upcoming obstacles. Later on, you'll gain the ability to travel into other players' games and either help or hunt them, depending on how you've progressed your character.

Your actions will actually affect the way the world works for others: if you choose to help other players, aiding them on a difficult quest or battle, the Character Tendency of the world will shift towards a white setting, meaning the game is easier and enemies aren't as tough. Hunting other players down, killing them, and stealing their souls, on the other hand, shifts the world towards a black setting and makes enemies a lot tougher. While you can put out a message asking other players for help, the events when others come into your world to hunt you down is random, so you'll constantly be on your toes for new threats after a certain point in the game's story.

Demon Souls is unlike any other RPG you're likely to play. While there are plenty of elements from other titles in the game, this title is so difficult, stylish, and incorporates enough original ideas that it manages to stand apart from — and well above — its competitors. Unfortunately, this challenge and depth is likely to turn off a number of gamers who prefer something easier. If you're willing to stick with this, though, Demon Souls will provide you with one of the greatest RPG experiences on the PS3.

Verdict: Buy

72 Reader Comments

Overall, it's a good review, Michael, but there are some inaccuracies around the death mechanic. If you die even once before reaching your blood stain, you lose all the souls that were at that first blood stain. If you do reach it though, you regain ALL of the souls that were dropped there.

I find this game frustratingly addictive. And, once the Pantheon was made available to me and I saw the achievements of others playing, I found that I am but a babe in the woods, carrying only a stick with a nail in it while wearing a meat diaper.

This game will completely treat you like a person in a terrible, terrible world. And I am thankful for that. While I love me some dungeon crawling and the action-RPG fair offered up thus far, nothing could prepare me for Demon's Souls.

If you can find it, get it. Just be prepared to provide yourself a lot of free time to fall in love with it.

"When you die again you lose all of the demon souls you've collected from your hard graft, and have to fight your way back through the level to your own bloodstain to regain them - at which point you either have to sprint for dear life away from whatever killed you the last time, or face getting unceremoniously dispatched by it once more. Die a third time before you make it back to your bloodstain and those souls are gone forever, which is truly heartbreaking when you have to work so hard for them."

The way I have experienced the death mechanic has been if you die while in soul form, you lose the souls. If you die again before you touch your bloodstain, souls are gone. It's been so long since I have been in body form that I don't really remember what it's like

Seriously though, this is an excellent game. Level 3-1 is downright creepy as hell, and the enemies in 4-1 are ruthless.

A few other interesting pointers that were missed. You can see the bloodstains of other players in your game. Touching them will give you a silhouette of their character's last moments before dying. Using these has helped me with anticipating ambushes and such. Players can recommend messages, and recommended messages last longer in the game world. There is also no obligation to leave a helpful message behind, and the in game message choices do give you more than enough options to leave deceptive or pointless messages for people to read.

Also, as you play, you can see white outlines of other players who are in the same area as you. You cannot interact with them, but it's kind of interesting seeing them sprint ahead and engage an enemy that you cannot see.

Perhaps it's this that you're seeing: If you die in another person's world (i.e. you've been summoned as a Blue Phantom) you don't lose any souls, or lose your own bloodstain in your original world.

If not, then I'd say that you guys have been lucky. I've never been able to reclaim my souls after more than one death. Did you guys discover easy mode? See reference quote from http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/concepts : "When you die ALL of the souls you have are dropped in a blood stain, if you make it back to your blood stain you can get all of your souls back. If you die again before you recover a blood stain all souls in that stain are lost."

Since there's at least two of you experiencing this, maybe you aren't mistaken. But I can attest that personally, my experience has lined up with what the wiki says (with the aforementioned caveat about dying in another player's world as a Blue Phantom).

Originally posted by ronelson:No pause button, seriously? I have a wife, guess I will have to pass.

This more then the difficulty has me turned off. While I can often play uninterrupted for hours I do like the ability to pause to either take a breather, visit the bathroom or let the dogs out. Not being able to do so might be necessary for the unique multi-player aspect it definitely pushes this game into the rental category for me. Shame it sounds like I might enjoy it otherwise.

Originally posted by ronelson:No pause button, seriously? I have a wife, guess I will have to pass.

This more then the difficulty has me turned off. While I can often play uninterrupted for hours I do like the ability to pause to either take a breather, visit the bathroom or let the dogs out. Not being able to do so might be necessary for the unique multi-player aspect it definitely pushes this game into the rental category for me. Shame it sounds like I might enjoy it otherwise.

It's really not that intrusive in soul form, just move to a spot where you've cleared. There's no 'respawn' aspect to this game in that sense.

Where it will bite you is in 'living' form 'cause if you get 'invaded' someone's about to get a free lunch. You can 'save' and exit to the main menu seemingly at any time/place however, though I've not tried doing this during a boss fight.

I like the idea of a game that punishes you and keeps you begging for more. There aren't enough games like that nowadays. I don't want to go on a "modern games are too easy" type rant but it's refreshing to see a game that will take more than 10 hours to beat. Hopefully there is some replay value here. This one could make the PS3 purchase worthwhile, along with GoW3.

Very good game and unique. I love the online aspect of the game, fits right in how the game works. Leaving messages is great fun and seeing many bloodstains and messages gives a fair warning something bad is upcoming and to be careful.

Highly recommend the game.

Replay: there is New Game+ and different events can occur depending on a couple variables. Or say in game 2 you want to start killing all the merchants go ahead.

Originally posted by ronelson:No pause button, seriously? I have a wife, guess I will have to pass.

This more then the difficulty has me turned off. While I can often play uninterrupted for hours I do like the ability to pause to either take a breather, visit the bathroom or let the dogs out. Not being able to do so might be necessary for the unique multi-player aspect it definitely pushes this game into the rental category for me. Shame it sounds like I might enjoy it otherwise.

It's really not that intrusive in soul form, just move to a spot where you've cleared. There's no 'respawn' aspect to this game in that sense.

Where it will bite you is in 'living' form 'cause if you get 'invaded' someone's about to get a free lunch. You can 'save' and exit to the main menu seemingly at any time/place however, though I've not tried doing this during a boss fight.

Very true, and you are likely going to spend the majority of your time in soul form.

Case in point, I forgot to quit the game when I turned off the TV one night. I was near the starting point but had cleared it out. Much to my shock, I turned the TV on the next day and there's my character just standing there in the exact same spot that I had left him.

It's hardly a dealbreaker to not have a pause option, and there really is no way to incorporate a pause function in a game that is designed to be online/multiplayer.

Originally posted by ronelson:No pause button, seriously? I have a wife, guess I will have to pass.

This more then the difficulty has me turned off. While I can often play uninterrupted for hours I do like the ability to pause to either take a breather, visit the bathroom or let the dogs out. Not being able to do so might be necessary for the unique multi-player aspect it definitely pushes this game into the rental category for me. Shame it sounds like I might enjoy it otherwise.

It's really not that intrusive in soul form, just move to a spot where you've cleared. There's no 'respawn' aspect to this game in that sense.

Where it will bite you is in 'living' form 'cause if you get 'invaded' someone's about to get a free lunch. You can 'save' and exit to the main menu seemingly at any time/place however, though I've not tried doing this during a boss fight.

I agree with Dave, not having a pause really has not affected my ability to step away when you need to.

For me, the absolute worst thing has to be that there's no way to opt out of having assholes come into your game and kill you short of playing entirely offline (and missing out on all the *good* things about the online aspect).

To clarify the bloodstain mechanic a bit, you can only leave one bloodstain at a time carrying whatever souls you had on you at the time. So if you died and left a stain containing 10000 souls, then died a second time while holding 100 souls, the original stain would be lost and you'd leave a new bloodstain with the 100 souls, and so on.

Also don't attack the NPCs unless you know what you're doing, if you make them angry they'll never stop attacking you. I accidently hit Blacksmith Ed and now I can't upgrade any of the decent weapons; there's 55 hours of work down the crapper. The second time through is quite a bit easier though, I finished past the first boss in about 30 minutes the second time around.

Originally posted by NegativeZero:For me, the absolute worst thing has to be that there's no way to opt out of having assholes come into your game and kill you short of playing entirely offline (and missing out on all the *good* things about the online aspect).

Invasions can only happen when you're living. If you hate them, just nexus suicide between boss kills and play the whole thing in soul form.

This review seems to have "tendency" very confused. However I can't really blame you. Here's a brief explanation

There's World Tendency (WT)- Goes towards black from dying in body form in that world- Goes white by defeating a boss/primeval demon/NPC Black Phantom in that level

Black WT makes enemies tougher but drop more souls and better loot. White is the opposite. Both ends of each aspect give the player special events and opportunities.

Then there's Character Tendency (CT)- Goes black by killing innocent NPCs and other players online by invading their worlds- Goes white by killing NPC Black Phantom and invading player Black Phantoms

Black CT makes you weaker against regular enemies, but stronger against other players. White CT is also the opposite. Both offer special rewards and opportunities.

Both White and Black CT and WT can be achieved in one play-through if you know the rules. It's not necessary to play by them and just do whatever you want, but they are still important concepts of the game.

It sounds like an absolute mess with gamebreakingly moronic bugs left in. No pause? Forced griefing? Trial and error with lost exp? Constant backtracking? I'd expect these flaws in a 15 year old JRPG, but in a modern game it's simply unacceptable. Another disturbing trend in practically every game now a days is the addition of excessive grinding to earn upgrades. I blame the success of WoW for convincing a generation of lazy video game producers that they can artificially inflate the "depth" of their buttonmashing by letting the player earn 0.001% of a new sword for each skeleton. But they don't stop there, they have the brazen lack of foresight to combine two gameplay flaws together into a truly impressive disincentive to keep playing: the ancient "lose everything if you die" penalty. Is this the goddamn NES? Unfortunately judging by the tone of this review and other commentary, modern gamers are so desperate for something to squander their time doing that they not only tolerate but welcome these abominable design choices. I think that's very telling.Video games are supposed to be fun to play. That is the universal immutable goal that a game developer should strive for whenever they consider introducing game features. Too often it seems that developers are cluelessly implementing unenlightened and ill-considered concepts and elements that deviate from this goal. So they churn out mediocre grindfests for masochistic mouthbreathers with more free time than brains. These kids can be counted on to turn out in droves get in on the hype machine and plop down their $60 for the honor of spending 90% of their gameplay hours grinding recycled enemies. Just all part of the big problem.

The game is brilliant. I already play new game+ with my second character. First character took me about 48 hours to finish it. With my second character took me 24 hours and now i'm in the middle of my new game+ with it.

the replay value is fantastic, before this game I never think to replay my game after i finished, but with this game, I want more and more punishment (ehm killed) event after you finished it.

Lots of weapon and spell only available in new game+ and using it will make the gameplay difference and unique. Such as, my second character in first play trough are magic user spearman, on second play trough cause I forge some great sword, my char is a sword wielding bow man with heavy armor who still can used magic to kick black skeleton ass.

regarding the "pause", you can quit the game at anytime and when you load it again, you will have the same condition when you quit. except in bos battle, you will be "relocated" in front of the fog of the boss room.

Action RPG like Zelda sort of is... How do you interact with the character?

Hit a button, he swings a sword. Hit another button he shoots the selected magic spell out.

Or is it more RPG-like in that you select what you will do and it happens?Is it more like in KOTOR or like in FF in this case?

I'm actually really curious about this game, but I'm just not sure I have the patience for it. Is the story really that engaging? I watched the intro video on Youtube and it just seemed so damned generic.

I've been tempted to add it to my cart more than once on Amazon. It's probably sold out at this point though. Hopefully, Atlus prints a few more.

Bhive01, the gameplay if you make comparison between KOTOR and FF, its more like KOTOR. You will used the shoulder button to perform an attack. The 2 left button to perform light and heavy left hit and 2 right button to perform light and heavy right hit.

The type of motion and attack characteristic depend on what weapon you equip on the right and left hand. Each of weapon in the game have very specific type of attack. you will need to know the weapon you will used, familiar with its characteristic then upgraded to master the game.The story and gameplay is very compelling, but it is not for someone who will rush on anything. You will need patient to learn the enemies and used the environtment to your advantage. These are important, because you will find that some enemy can gave you instant death with 1 hit.

Originally posted by ZeroLine:Bhive01, the gameplay if you make comparison between KOTOR and FF, its more like KOTOR. You will used the shoulder button to perform an attack. The 2 left button to perform light and heavy left hit and 2 right button to perform light and heavy right hit.

The type of motion and attack characteristic depend on what weapon you equip on the right and left hand. Each of weapon in the game have very specific type of attack. you will need to know the weapon you will used, familiar with its characteristic then upgraded to master the game.The story and gameplay is very compelling, but it is not for someone who will rush on anything. You will need patient to learn the enemies and used the environment to your advantage. These are important, because you will find that some enemy can gave you instant death with 1 hit.

Thanks for the response. So the gameplay is actually more like Zelda/Gauntlet in that you press a button and your character does the action immediately, it's not delayed like KOTOR, more like Mass Effect. 3rd person adventure with RPG elements.

I have to be honest, I used to love a challenge, but I'm not sure I have the patience for any more. I'm really intrigued, but at the same time I'm not sure I'm 60$ intrigued. Despite what my friends say. I'm guessing that since it's Atlus/From Software that this will never see the clearance rack because they never seem to make enough of them.

Originally posted by Bird Skull:It sounds like an absolute mess with gamebreakingly moronic bugs left in. No pause?

The game doesnt need it - part of the skill is the real-timeness of it, and theres plenty of places to chill

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Forced griefing?

The "pvp" system is totally avoidable, because there is very little reason to play as living. The people who play alive understand the possible risks doing so online, and you have to understand, it's a motherfucking thrill to invade someones game - who by the rules is higher level then you - and they are often alive because they are playing co-op, thus doubling the danger.

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Trial and error with lost exp?

The game unabashedly doesnt hold your hand. It doesnt feel like you are pressing button through a cutscene. You fuck up, 9 times out of 10 its your fault entirely. And you learn. Theres rarely a time when you lose a crippling amount of xp anyway.

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Constant backtracking?

OMFG, a death /penalty/ in a game. You have to replay from a "checkpoint"(left after a boss kill), and yes, you need to play from one checkpoint to the next at your best the whole time AND beat a boss to progress. Can it be infuriating? Fuck yeah! The game isnt necessarily "impossibly hard", but it will NOT reward you if you suck and just want to get through.

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I'd expect these flaws in a 15 year old JRPG, but in a modern game it's simply unacceptable.

All the gameplay mechanics are obviously on purpose, and it's a breath of fresh air from the hand-holding most modern games employ to cater to a wider audience.

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Another disturbing trend in practically every game now a days is the addition of excessive grinding to earn upgrades. I blame the success of WoW for convincing a generation of lazy video game producers that they can artificially inflate the "depth" of their buttonmashing by letting the player earn 0.001% of a new sword for each skeleton.

I find fault in the xp system, too. It's close, but I'll be damned if you're going to gain a level in new game plus from any normal going through a level. I know why it is like it is - you can never stop grinders from grinding, but those who dont will find a consistent challenge with minimal grinding, if any at all. My friend is doing fine w/o it, and refuses too.

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But they don't stop there, they have the brazen lack of foresight to combine two gameplay flaws together into a truly impressive disincentive to keep playing: the ancient "lose everything if you die" penalty. Is this the goddamn NES?

You dont lose everything, in fact, you generally end up with a positive net gain going back for your body, and you never, EVER lose items. It's not EverQuest, where you have to go loot your corpse piece by piece.

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Unfortunately judging by the tone of this review and other commentary, modern gamers are so desperate for something to squander their time doing that they not only tolerate but welcome these abominable design choices. I think that's very telling.Video games are supposed to be fun to play. That is the universal immutable goal that a game developer should strive for whenever they consider introducing game features. Too often it seems that developers are cluelessly implementing unenlightened and ill-considered concepts and elements that deviate from this goal. So they churn out mediocre grindfests for masochistic mouthbreathers with more free time than brains. These kids can be counted on to turn out in droves get in on the hype machine and plop down their $60 for the honor of spending 90% of their gameplay hours grinding recycled enemies. Just all part of the big problem.

I spent ~40 hours on the first play through. It was fun the entire time, rare in a game these days. The sense of accomplishment, discovery, etc, harkens back to the original EQ and Ultima days. You know you earned it when you win. You know shit about this game - go rent it, then come back. If it wasnt good, it wouldnt be sold out everywhere. Im usually not a fanboy for a game, but when something breaks ground or reintroduces old needed mechanics, I will cheer loudly while pointing out its faults. And there are lots of them, but not enough to detract from a second playthrough. New game + FTW.

* Lock on system needs work. That 1 in 10 death is usually because you lock on to the wrong thing and you go from free run to strafing to falling off a cliff, or locked on to something not attacking you and you fail to have a shield up for the nastyness(im looking at you 2-1, with all the dogs and the mudgoblins). You learn to be careful, but the button they use and a bunch of other factors make it a sticking point.*XP reward from normal enemies is a bit light in a lot of zones. This one is at world 5 in particular.*Setting your controller down in the nexus can be devastating. This is mostly sonys fault, but theres nothing like standing in front of the NPC that levels you, setting the controller down and doing the heavy hit on said NPC killing her forever. Thank god it doesnt autosave for that "quickly unplugs"*Some gameplay mechanics not given enough love, like armor (would be nice to be able to upgrade it like weapons) and magic (limited focus items, and as a straight up kill method, by far the hardest in the game because mana regen is not prevalent)*A lot of bosses can be "cheesed". I wish there had been more care taken to make them more approachable. Some are fantastic fights, while others are terrible.*poison, bleeding, plague are all essentially the same thing, -hp/time. While some suck more then others (plague, ef u), I would have liked to have seen status aliments effect you in some other way. *fighting in the swamp. ok, not a fault, I just hate it. A lot.

Originally posted by ronelson:No pause button, seriously? I have a wife, guess I will have to pass.

This more then the difficulty has me turned off. While I can often play uninterrupted for hours I do like the ability to pause to either take a breather, visit the bathroom or let the dogs out. Not being able to do so might be necessary for the unique multi-player aspect it definitely pushes this game into the rental category for me. Shame it sounds like I might enjoy it otherwise.

It's MULTIPLAYER. How do you propose that they allow pausing?

Do you pause other multiplayer games that you play mid-match?

If you need to take a breather, just warp back to the Nexus. There are shards of stone that let you do just that, though I've only found 4 or 5 of them in the 15 hours I've played so far.

* Lock on system needs work. That 1 in 10 death is usually because you lock on to the wrong thing and you go from free run to strafing to falling off a cliff, or locked on to something not attacking you and you fail to have a shield up for the nastyness(im looking at you 2-1, with all the dogs and the mudgoblins). You learn to be careful, but the button they use and a bunch of other factors make it a sticking point.

Haven't had the above issue. For me, the lock on system is spot on. No pun intended.

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*XP reward from normal enemies is a bit light in a lot of zones. This one is at world 5 in particular.

If you backstab or parry you get a lot more souls (40%?)

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*Setting your controller down in the nexus can be devastating. This is mostly sonys fault, but theres nothing like standing in front of the NPC that levels you, setting the controller down and doing the heavy hit on said NPC killing her forever. Thank god it doesnt autosave for that "quickly unplugs"

Ahahahaha! That's hilarious. Haven't had it happen yet, but I can see why they left it in. I mean, they want to punish your mistakes in this game.

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*Some gameplay mechanics not given enough love, like armor (would be nice to be able to upgrade it like weapons) and magic (limited focus items, and as a straight up kill method, by far the hardest in the game because mana regen is not prevalent)

I wish mana auto-regenerated (even slowly) because mana regen herbs are so hard for me to find

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*A lot of bosses can be "cheesed". I wish there had been more care taken to make them more approachable. Some are fantastic fights, while others are terrible.*poison, bleeding, plague are all essentially the same thing, -hp/time. While some suck more then others (plague, ef u), I would have liked to have seen status aliments effect you in some other way.

I caught the plague from a rat and didn't have the cure or 2000 souls on hand to buy the cure. I died. :X

Originally posted by Bird Skull:It sounds like an absolute mess with gamebreakingly moronic bugs left in. No pause? Forced griefing? Trial and error with lost exp? Constant backtracking? I'd expect these flaws in a 15 year old JRPG, but in a modern game it's simply unacceptable. Another disturbing trend in practically every game now a days is the addition of excessive grinding to earn upgrades. I blame the success of WoW for convincing a generation of lazy video game producers that they can artificially inflate the "depth" of their buttonmashing by letting the player earn 0.001% of a new sword for each skeleton. But they don't stop there, they have the brazen lack of foresight to combine two gameplay flaws together into a truly impressive disincentive to keep playing: the ancient "lose everything if you die" penalty. Is this the goddamn NES? Unfortunately judging by the tone of this review and other commentary, modern gamers are so desperate for something to squander their time doing that they not only tolerate but welcome these abominable design choices. I think that's very telling.Video games are supposed to be fun to play. That is the universal immutable goal that a game developer should strive for whenever they consider introducing game features. Too often it seems that developers are cluelessly implementing unenlightened and ill-considered concepts and elements that deviate from this goal. So they churn out mediocre grindfests for masochistic mouthbreathers with more free time than brains. These kids can be counted on to turn out in droves get in on the hype machine and plop down their $60 for the honor of spending 90% of their gameplay hours grinding recycled enemies. Just all part of the big problem.

This game isn't like any other game before, it's all about life and death.

All the enviroments are really dark, and threathening, you'll maybe come across one or two NPC in each level wich aren't trying to kill you.

And you'll often see the ghosts of other players shimmering into your game for a few second as they are fighting for their lifes in their own games.

Alot of the fun in the gameplay comes by beating a challenging foe, and the possibility of beeing alive makes this easier, it is however a risk/reward thing.

There isn't griefing in this game, noone will take anything from you.

When a black phantasm kill you, you can stay dead, but the level will be extra hard then.

If you are alive, you got twice as much HP as when you are dead, but even more importantly, you can see other players blue soul-stones.

Any 'dead' players can leave a blue soulstone on the ground, after they've receeived the stone from the first boss.Any live player can see that stone on the ground in their own games, they can use them and summon that dead player (a blue phantom) into their own universe.

Then he will no longer be a shimmering ghost, he will be a person able to help you out, opening shortcuts, fighting enemies, and and powerfull bosses in your game.

It's the same foes that you would fight alone, and when a blue phantom kills a foe, it rewards you just the same as when you kill one. :-/

And it's much easier to kill 4 enemies when you are two or more players, compared to when you are alone.

However there is also a danger by gaining these benefit that comes with beeing alive in your own physical body.

And that is where the black phantoms comes along.

All phantasms aren allways helpfull tough, a blue phantasm usually are helping you out with the aim to kill the boss on that level - a boss usually opens other areas into the game, and grant the players powerfull items/rewards aswell, but more importantly they have a soul powerfull enough to bring dead players back to life.

The black phantasms however are evil, invading your game instead, by using a more evil soulstone, a black one, instead of the blue - since you yourself have a soul powerfull enough to bring 'them' back to life.

If he succeeds at killing you, you will be killed, and restart the level alone in ghost form, and he will be returned to nexus alive, in his game.But his world tendency will be black, i.e. harder foes.

Even tough you are now at 0 souls, you can fight your way back to where he killed you, and regain all the lost souls, if you touch your own bloodstains, with no danger for beeing invaded, since you are now dead.

All the enemies will be respawned, only bosses don't respawn.

It's not forced griefing in the way that people can take all your items, it's just your soul they can take.